Stani Kulechov said reporting on Payward talks was inaccurate, while acknowledging discussions about buying AAVE tokens as part of a broader long-term partnership.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov disputed a report that Payward, Kraken’s parent company, was negotiating to buy a 15% stake in Aave for $385 million, saying on X there was “NO WAY” AAVE would be sold at a 70% discount. He said the reporting was “inaccurate,” while adding that several market participants had discussed buying AAVE tokens directly or indirectly as part of a much larger long-term partnership. The distinction matters because Aave Labs, the for-profit development company behind the protocol, holds its own AAVE token allocation, so any sale from that pool would be a treasury transaction rather than a protocol-level sale. Kulechov also pointed to about $134 million in annualized revenue and a planned Aavenomics 3.0 upgrade with an automated, non-discretionary buyback mechanism as reasons to reject a steeply discounted deal.